Sunday, September 2, 2012

Animal wastes will be converted into biofuel at Mysore Zoo

Starting next month, the cooking bill of Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens is all set to become slimmer as the bio-gas plant will become operartional. The Zoo requires around 30 LPG cylinders every month to cook food for the animals and once the new facility is in place then it stop using LPG cylinders saving Rs 13,000 every month.

The capacity of the proposed Biogas Plant to handle organic and bio-degradable wastes 1500 kg, while the zoo is already generating around 500 kg of animal and kitchen wastes daily. By just utilizing the wastes produced by the elephants and buffalos enough gaseous fuel will be generated to meet the demands of cooking.

Karnataka Zoo Authority Chairman Nanjundaswamy informed that the work has reached the finishing stage and will be ready for inauguration by next month. The generated fuel will be fed directly to the kitchen through pipes thereby reducing the usage of LPG.

Assistant Engineer Nagendrappa said that every month they need around 30 cylinders costing around Rs 13,000 which can be saved substantially if the bio-fuel generated in house is also made use of. “As the animal wastes and water are mixed in equal percentages (50:50), the resulting gas generated is quite sufficient", he added.

The cost of the project is Rs 20 lakh of which Rs 18 lakh will be funded by Mysore City Corporation under JNNURM and the remaining Rs 2 lakh will be borne by Zoo. The project is being overseen and implemented by National Institute of Engineering-Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technologies (NIE-CREST) and the technology is developed by Babha
Atomic Research Centre. (BARC)

Drinking Water Facility
To ease the drinking water problem at Zoo, the authorities are setting up
drinking water tanks at three places. Even, water purification is done to
provide safe drinking water, which are also being readied by this month end.